The No. 10 Ball State University Cardinals split its weekend Midwest Intercollegiate Volleyball Association matches for the second weekend in a row. The Cardinals beat the Hawks from Quincy on Friday 3-0 (30-25, 30-22, 30-22) and then lost to Ohio State on Saturday 3-0 (31-29, 30-22, 30-28).
The Cardinals flew past the Hawks in three games in part to good defense and consistent offense.
"Our offense really ran," coach Joel Walton said. "We just stifled them with our serve and kept them out of their system."
During game one the score remained close until Ball State went on a three to zero run and pushed the score to 17-14.-á The Cardinals didn't look back.-á
Freshman Ryan Clarke got his most significant action of the season and finished with eight kills, and Ian Peckler led the team with 15 digs.
"I just said we had two good games," Walton said. "Let's make sure we jump on them early in [game three]. Probably the best thing we did all night was serving in and serve tough."-á
On Saturday night the crowd was ready for a shootout between two MIVA rivals, Ball State and Ohio State.-áThe Cardinals (13-2, 4-2 MIVA) had not beaten Ohio State (12-4, 2-2 MIVA) since 2004 and wouldn't get to change that trend as the Cardinals fell in three games.
In front of a season-high crowd of 1,572, the Ball State fans watched the Buckeyes have their way with the "flat" Ball State play as Walton put it.-á
Robbie Klein, Andy Cole and John Albertson had good nights for Ohio State scoring 12, nine, and eight kills, respectively. For Ball State, the leader was Patrick Durbin.-áDurbin had a match-high 14 kills and five digs.-á
"Obviously were going to soak in the loss tonight," Patrick Durbin said. "Coming in Monday, we've got to get everybody working really hard. We had a rough week of practice, and it showed tonight."
After losing game one the Cardinals looked defeated and played with their backs against the wall. Game two was much like the first and the Cardinals dropped it 30-22.
During game three, the Cardinals fell down early 6-1 and struggled to recover. After fighting back the score was 29-27 Ohio State in the final moments of the game. Evan Berg had a kill to make it 29-28 but Ohio State took the final point and won the match.-á-á
"Looking at last night's play, I knew if we played like that tonight that we were going to be in a rough ride," Durbin said. "We came out the same way tonight and had that rough ride going. We had that first loss and just couldn't come back from that."-á
Big games still remain against teams like IPFW, Loyola, Ohio State, and Penn State.
"This is very significant," Walton said. "We've had a couple of losses in the last two weeks that should open our guy's eyes. So we've got some things we need to look at. We need to make sure we take a good week of practice and put some tweaks in and some changes that are going to get our offense going again."
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